The first recorded polio case in the Gaza Strip in 25 years has health professionals and relief agencies scrambling to overcome the formidable challenges of widespread vaccination in the war-torn Palestinian region.
Unrelenting air assaults by Israel more than ten months into its war against Gaza rulers Hamas, restrictions on supplies entering the beleaguered area, and high summer temperatures all threaten the feasibility of a life-saving vaccination campaign.
Nonetheless, equipment to support the comprehensive campaign, which UN agencies say will begin on August 31, has already arrived in the region.
The Palestinian health ministry in the occupied West Bank announced last week that tests in Jordan revealed polio in an unvaccinated 10-month-old baby from central Gaza.
According to the United Nations, Gaza has not had a case in 25 years, but type 2 poliovirus was discovered in samples collected from the territory’s wastewater in June.
Poliovirus is highly infectious and spreads mostly through sewage and contaminated water, which is becoming an increasingly regular problem in Gaza as the Israel-Hamas conflict continues on.
The condition primarily affects children under the age of five. It can result in malformations and paralysis and is possibly lethal.
UN agencies the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF claim they have specific plans to vaccinate 640,000 youngsters in Gaza.
However, Israel’s catastrophic military assault, launched in response to Hamas’ October 7 strike on the country’s south, remains a serious issue.
“It’s extremely difficult to undertake a vaccination campaign of this scale and volume under a sky full of air strikes,” said Juliette Touma, UNRWA’s head of communications.
Once eradicated
According to Richard Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative in the Palestinian territories, the UN plan would involve 2,700 health workers divided into 708 teams.
UNICEF would maintain a refrigerated supply chain while vaccines are delivered into and distributed throughout Gaza, according to spokesperson Jonathan Crickx.
Cold chain components, including refrigerators, arrived Wednesday at Israel’s largest international airport.
Crickx claimed that approximately 1.6 million doses of the oral vaccination would be delivered to Gaza via the Kerem Shalom gate on Sunday.
According to Crickx, the UN agencies intend to provide two doses to approximately 95 percent of Gaza’s youngsters under the age of ten. Surplus doses would offset projected losses due to heat or other causes.
While Israel has frequently denied charges that it is preventing help from entering Gaza, relief workers have long complained about the numerous challenges they face in delivering goods to the enclave, which has serious shortages of everything from gasoline and medical equipment to food.
Once in Gaza, violence, enormous devastation, and collapsing infrastructure all hamper delivery and safe passage.
Touma, who worked on polio response during the Iraq and Syrian wars, stated that “the return of polio to a place where it’s been eradicated says quite a lot.”
Since October 7, Israel’s military operation in Gaza has killed at least 40,223 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
It does not specify civilian or militant deaths, but the UN human rights office reports that the majority of those killed are women and children.
The Hamas strike that launched the war killed 1,199 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP assessment based on Israeli official numbers.
‘Safe environment’
According to Crickx, Gaza’s health care system has been severely impacted, with only 16 out of 36 facilities remaining operational, although partially.
He noted that only 11 of those facilities can sustain the cold chain.
Crickx stated that the vaccines would be maintained at a UN storage facility in central Gaza before being given to public and private health facilities, as well as UNRWA shelters, “hopefully by refrigerated trucks if we can find some, otherwise by cold boxes” loaded with ice packs.
Many Gazans are now living in makeshift camps or UNRWA schools, making them difficult to reach, according to Moussa Abed, director of primary health care at the Gaza health ministry.
Almost all of the territory’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced at least once throughout the conflict.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has requested two seven-day breaks during the battle to provide dosages.
According to Abed, “without a safe environment for the vaccination campaign, we will not be able to reach 95 percent of the children under the age of 10, which is the goal of this campaign.”
When contacted by AFP, COGAT, an Israeli defense ministry body in charge of civilian operations in the Palestinian territories, did not directly reference the planned UN campaign, but did state that “a joint effort will be made with the international community on the issue of polio.”